In this solo podcast episode, the host returns after a brief hiatus and outlines three primary health and fitness focus areas for 2025. First, he emphasizes "foundational health habits"—a set of seven daily practices (alcohol, caffeine, protein, water, steps, sleep, whole foods). He reports current consistency levels (four habits >80%, two around 80% but vulnerable, whole foods at ~50%) and sets a goal to have six habits reliably >80% by year‑end, with whole foods approaching that level. Second, he tackles long‑standing digestive issues, describing past symptoms, recent interventions (tripling fiber intake, slowing eating, working with a nutritionist and gut‑health coach, supplements, upcoming stool test) and aims to normalize gut function. Third, he addresses mobility, noting his strong training regimen but chronic stiffness, and proposes adding yoga, nightly stretching, and other mobility programs to improve flexibility and reduce injury risk. Throughout, he shares personal metrics, acknowledges likely setbacks, and invites listeners to contact him for guidance on building foundational habits.
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All right, I'm back. So as it turns out, I took a bit of a break with the podcast. Now, it was perhaps a bit longer than I'd planned, but I'm excited to jump back in now. And I don't know about you, but life has a strange way of chucking everything at you at the same time. And that's exactly what happened to me. But I'm back now and I have big plans for the podcast in 2025. So what better way to get stuck back in than to talk about my health and my fitness goals for the year ahead? Now, towards the end of last year, I took a step back to reflect on where I was at with my foundational health habits and my overall health and fitness. And I also started to think about where do I want to spend my energy and focus in 2025 so that I can take things to the next level. Now, as usual, there's never a shortage, shortage of things to focus on and improve, but I've narrowed it down to 3 main areas of focus for 2025, and I want to share those with you. So look, let's jump in. My number 1 focus, drum roll, no surprises, is going to be my foundational health habits. Now, in previous episodes, I refer to my foundational health habits as the base of the pyramid, and that's because they are the cornerstone of my health and fitness efforts. Not only have I found that they make the biggest difference to how I look and feel, but importantly, they are critical to me being a stronger, disciplined person. Someone who is capable of being consistent when it comes to health and fitness efforts. And when they slide, I immediately start to feel crappy and everything else gets 10 times harder. And actually, that's why if someone is looking to take a first step in improving their health and fitness, and in fact their life, it's always where I would advise people to start. Forget which training program you're going to go on, forget what type of diet you're going to go on, forget what supplements you're going to take. Start with foundational health habits and then build from there. And I know for me personally, it's a journey I'm going to always be on and it's something that I'm always going to be trying to improve. And that's why it's one of my areas of focus for 2025. So look, a quick recap on where I'm at with my foundational health habits. Now I have 7 foundational health habits. 4 of them are in a really, really good place. That's alcohol, caffeine, protein, and water. Now, these 4 habits are almost always reliably over 80% consistent every single month. 2 of my habits, they're in a pretty good place, but there is a reasonable amount of vulnerability with them, and that's steps and sleep. Now, whilst I would hope for these to be at 80% consistency each month, often they dip below 80%, and even when I do hit 80%, I kind of get there by the skin of my teeth. And then lastly, I have one habit that is still in the very early stages of me building, and that's whole foods. And this is where I want 80% of my foods each day to come from whole foods. Now I'm still on pretty shaky ground here. I'm usually coming in around 50% consistency each month. So that's where I'm at right now. 4 habits in a great place, 2 habits in a kind of like okay place, and 1 in a kind of shaky place. And where do I want to focus my efforts going forward to improve upon those? Well, for a start, I want to keep the 4 habits I have in a good place staying in a good place. I don't want to be complacent with them and I don't want them to slide. The 2 habits that are a little bit vulnerable, sleep and steps, I want to get them into a more robust place where they're mostly over 80% consistent each month. And they're feeling like the other 4 habits. And then I want to get whole foods up and closer to 80% consistency. I don't mind if there's still some vulnerability there, but I want it to feel like I'm not in the early stages of building it and more actually like sleep, sleep and steps feel now. So in summary, where do I want to be by the end of 2025? I want 6 habits in a solid, stable and reliable place. That's alcohol, caffeine, protein, water, steps, and sleep. And then the remaining one, whole foods. I want to get that into a more robust place. It's fine if it still needs a little bit more work, but it needs to feel a bit more like sleep and steps feel now. And that would be an amazing place for my habits to be in. And actually, it would be quite a big step forward from where I'm at now. So that's the first area of focus. Foundational health habits, and I will be talking about my progress with these throughout the year. Now that I've covered foundational health habits, let's talk about something I've struggled with for a very long time, and that's my digestive health. And my digestive health is going to be my second area of focus for 2025. Now, I've struggled with digestive issues for as long as I can remember, right back to when I was a child. My stomach has always been quite unpredictable. Some days I'll be bloated and in pain, and in general I suffer from constipation and quite a lot of irregularity. And I had a health hiccup over Christmas that was quite a big wake-up call for me, and I actually realised that I had normalised what is actually quite a bad situation. And I'd just gotten used to feeling like this and thinking, look, that's just how I am. But I really want to make some big improvements to my digestive health this year, and I want to try and get much closer to being normal. Now I've made two big changes when it comes to my digestive health already. For a start, I'm eating more fibre. I've almost tripled the amount of fibre I'm eating from 10g to 30g per day. And then second, I'm eating much more slowly. So I've always been an incredibly fast eater. In fact, I would often joke that I inhale my food and I'm usually finished before most people have got started. And slowing down my eating is something that I'm— is the second thing I'm really trying to focus on at the moment when it comes to digestive health. And both eating more fiber and eating more slowly have helped a huge amount so far, and I'm already feeling a lot better. But I've also started working with a nutritionist and a gut health coach, and I've already started to work on some of the initial advice that they've given me. So I've bought some supplements in. I'm starting to get in some better habits generally for gut health, and I'm going to be doing a stool test soon. And whatever comes out from that, we'll work on. So digestive health is going to be a big focus for this year. I want to finally get this into a more normal place, and I want most of these symptoms I mentioned earlier to be a thing of the past. All right. So in summary, that's two areas of focus so far. A big step forward with my foundational health habits and a big improvement in my digestive health. The third area of focus is something that's plagued me for also a lot of my life, and I'm determined to tackle it this year. And that's my mobility. So if you think about my training, I'm in an amazing place at the moment. I train 5 times a week, a mixture of weights, high-intensity training, and Zone 2 cardio. And I'm extremely consistent in doing that week in, week out. And I'm also seeing really good results. I look better, I'm stronger, leaner, and fitter than I've ever been. And I would actually say that I've had more results in the last 2 years than the 10 that came before it. But I do have a weak spot, and that is mobility, and it's my Achilles heel. Now, I've always been quite a stiff and inflexible person, and what this means is that not only am I at a higher risk of injury, but actually day to day I just tend to feel a little bit creaky. It's usually when I'm waking up or maybe when I move in a certain way. So if I go to pick something up or if I get up from the floor, it can usually just feel a bit awkward. And stiff. And this is an area in which I feel that I could make some really nice improvements to how I feel if I can find a way to consistently work on it. Now, what does that look like? Right. Well, right now, the types of things I have in mind are I want to bring a yoga practice into my life. I also want to get into the habit of stretching before bed. And there's a number of other programs like mobility programs that I've got in mind that I would like to work through. And I want to start folding these types of things into my week and essentially get into the habit of doing a couple of things per week when it comes to mobility. And I know this is a bit of a vague action plan, but I want to be quite agile about it. I want to explore and try lots of different things until I find something that works for me and also something that I'm able to stick to. But in general, I want to make a decent improvement to my mobility in 2025. So let's wrap the episode. My areas of focus for 2025 when it comes to my health and fitness are 3 things: take a big step forward with my foundational health habits, improve my digestive health, and improve my mobility. And I think progress in these 3 areas will help me take all of my health and fitness to a brand new level. Now, I'm also sure there's going to be quite a bit of 2 steps forward, 1 step back moments when it comes to these 3 things. But I'm going to work really hard on them and I'll keep you in the loop with how I'm doing. And that's pretty much it for the episode. Actually, I'll say one more thing. If you're thinking about improving your health, looking better and feeling better in 2025, I would massively encourage you to get on a journey with building foundational health habits. Life is just too short to feel tired, crappy, and to be out of shape. And foundational health habits are your best bet to get yourself out of feeling like this onto a much better track. And if you want any help with this at all, feel free to DM me on Twitter or LinkedIn, or just shoot me an email. I'd love to chat and help however I can. All right, that's it. See you next episode.
